


vantage

by tanyart



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Antagonism, Character Study, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 12:57:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9441290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanyart/pseuds/tanyart
Summary: Six dead bodies on the ground is a bad way to be inspired.





	

Six men drop dead in a blink of an eye and suddenly there is very little left to kill on the field.  The chaotic battle comes to an abrupt halt, a radio shout of _all-clear_ rings through everyone’s earpieces, and then the mission ends.  Genji is left pulling his sword free from his most recent engagement, electricity cauterizing the corpse’s flesh so the blade comes out bloodless and clean.  He doesn’t spare it another glance.  The electric crackling is too loud in the silence of the old omnic factory, but he doesn’t sheath his sword.

Genji looks up at the overhang above him.  There is a man standing on the platform, bullet casings pinging down to the floor, six in total to match the six enemies that had fallen.  A shell rolls near Genji’s foot. He flicks it away with his blade.

Beside him, Winston breathes a sigh of relief.  Genji glances at him.  He knows Winston had called for backup in the middle of battle, and Genji had expected a team of Overwatch agents, dressed in familiar blue or orange.  Instead, there had only been one man with a single gun and a bright red kerchief tied to his neck.  Genji remembers gritting his teeth, readying himself for a longer fight, but their enemies had started to fall, one by one.   

Six men dead in less than a second.

“How does he do that?” Genji asks.

“He’s from Blackwatch,” Winston says, as if it explained everything. He opens his mouth, wanting to say more, but an airship cuts across the horizon, waiting for their signal to land.  On cue, the Blackwatch agent raises his arm, flare gun glinting in the light, and shoots a plume of fiery red into the sky.  “And that’s our ride, I suppose.”  

Genji scoffs, finally powering down his sword, and slams it back into its sheath.

 

* * *

 

Genji falls back into his old habits.  

Or perhaps it’s not quite the right way to describe it.  He _feels_ like falling back into old habits.  A lifetime of crafting his own social circles and weaving through a myriad of acquaintances cannot be undone so easily, no matter how determined he is to stay morose and aloof.  Sometimes a person grows bored wallowing in self-pity.  He knows this from experience, long before Hanzo had tried to murder him.  Especially before.

_Make some friends.  You used to be good at that, right?_

The idea is there, lingering in the forefront of his mind.  Each time he waves aside Winston or gives a curt reply to Lena, Genji thinks of how easy it should have been.  But he has not been feeling very much like _himself_ , despite knowing the right words to say and the friendly gestures he used to carry.  He blames his cybernetics.  

The ride back to base is uneventful.  Genji catches the Blackwatch agent going from the passenger hold to the cockpit, hand pressed to the side of his head and speaking through his communication link.  Their eyes meet for a brief second as he passes by.  The Blackwatch agent touches the brim of his hat in silent acknowledgement, but otherwise his gaze flits back to the control panel.  

Genji notes the revolver at the agent’s hip—a sharpshooter’s weapon for a fighter with a keen eye and a steady hand.  He smirks, and then stops.  A keen eye can’t see through the visor, so there really isn’t a point.

The airship lands and Genji unclips his safety harness, but the Blackwatch agent is already on his feet the moment the ship’s doors start to open. Outside, the hanger is buzzing with activity and the agent disappears behind the approaching ground crew.  

Genji doesn’t bother giving him another thought.  


* * *

 

The second time six enemies end up dead in less than a second, Genji gives the Blackwatch agent another long look.  He is intrigued, but not in his usual way.  His sword buzzes in his hand, restless, and it takes a moment for Genji to sheath it.  This time, Winston isn’t with him to throw him uneasy glances.    

If it he had been living his past life, Genji would have narrowed it down to harmless curiosity.  He is not used to checking himself back, refraining or denying what takes his interest. The context is all wrong, coming in the aftermath of battle, with blood on his sword and dead men at his feet.

“What’s his name?”

“That is Agent McCree,” Dr. Ziegler says, in the back of their transport.  She looks him over, noting the excessiveness of his injuries, the dents in his armor. She frowns.

It is not so much carelessness as it is recklessness.  Genji assumes she already knows, but it is a battle she’s not choosing to pick today.

“He is a good friend of mine,” Dr. Ziegler continues, the gentle encouragement there in her voice.  

“Another frequent patient?” Genji asks, a little sarcastic.

“On occasion,” Dr. Ziegler replies, evidently fond, and Genji supposes that’s really all he needs to know about Agent McCree.

Inspection complete, Dr. Ziegler sets him loose in favor of seeing other agents who have been hurt in battle.  Genji notes that Agent McCree is not one of them, or at the very least his injuries are not dire enough to seek a doctor out.

 _Make some friends_.

It’s instinct, itching through his metal bones, but resentment twists in his gut.  Genji feels very compelled to do little else but _hurt_ , but that is, after all, the very thing he has been designed to do.  So he is, in a way, succeeding in his overall purpose.

With that bitter thought in mind, he approaches McCree, making no effort to hide his presence.  His normally light footsteps crunch loud over the gravel pavement.  McCree turns around to face him the same time Genji reaches out and grabs his arm.

“Problem?” McCree asks, stilling under Genji’s faceless stare.  

Genji recognizes it, the way McCree’s breathing turns slow and even.  He has _seen_ it in action, during battles where everything else blurs in his vision as he cuts through his enemies.  McCree has the maddening tendency to go motionless and still when everything else is chaotic, and it paints him a frozen target in Genji’s sight each time.

Six dead, no matter how far away they happen to be, and Genji is bitterly jealous.

McCree’s hand is already over his revolver, but he waits.  Genji ignores McCree’s silent threat and leans close to inspect his eyes, looking for a hint of circuits in those brown irises.  He knows Captain Amari has an eye implant to assist her long-range tactics, so it would not be farfetched for McCree to have one either.  

Genji feels a strange mix of disappointment and awe when he does not.  McCree’s eyes are very plain, unspectacular and dull in every way.   _So ordinary_ , Genji thinks with growing spite.  Doctor Ziegler hasn’t implanted _his_ eyes for enhanced vision and optics.  Pity she did not.  Genji thinks she should have replaced everything while she had the chance.  

If Overwatch was to make a weapon out of him, better to get rid of everything human.

He doesn’t know what he’s hoping for.  It’s one last chance, one last excuse, and he glances down at McCree’s hands.  One is resting at his side, relaxed, the other is still over his gun. Genji expects the trigger finger to be mechanized somehow, to explain the quickness of his shots, but once again he is mistaken.

It only takes a second to look.  Genji’s cybernetics slow time down to a crawl.  He steps back, letting go of McCree’s arm.  After a moment, McCree seems to sense Genji as non-violent, at least for the time being.  His shoulders straighten and he assesses Genji in return.  Genji smiles, sharp, but his expression remains unseen.

No, McCree is fully human, from the top of his hat to the bottom of his boots.  There is not a single piece of metal built into him.  He is inspiring in his lethality.  It makes Genji furious.

“My name is Genji,” he says. The mechanical warble displaces his voice, masking his tone.  It comes out deceptively flippant.  “Your aim is impressive.”

McCree blinks, and then he’s all movement again.  He grins, no more than a dangerous flash of teeth, and tips his hat.  “Thank you kindly, stranger.”  

Genji laughs—the sound of it makes McCree tilt his head, and it’s perfect.  It lowers his defenses, catches him off-guard.

Genji throws the first punch.  


* * *

 

All infirmaries end up looking more or less the same.  Genji throws his arm over his eyes, hating how the hard metal presses against the skin.  It’s no comfort, it doesn’t conform to his face as real flesh should.  The human parts of his body hurt, but not his artificial arms, or legs, or reinforced spine.  For some reason he still cannot bear move.  He lays in bed, useless.

“Why,” he says, not looking at Dr. Ziegler.  “Why didn’t you just make me all mechanical?”

Her disappointment in him is well-deserved.  He couldn’t even win a fight against a Blackwatch agent.  Dr. Ziegler glances at him.  She is disappointed _and_ angry.  It is the first time he has been the target of her temper, forcing him back from McCree.  She is losing patience with him, and it makes him feel morbidly vindicated.

“If Overwatch wanted a newer Bastion model, they would have made one,” Dr. Ziegler says, voice clipped with anger.  She pauses.  Genji can hear her inhale, a silent count to five to chill her temper before letting it out in a sigh.  She glances back at the monitors, brushing her fingers over her tablet to adjust the screens.  “Genji.  I will not apologize for saving your life, but if this is not _how_ you want to live, tell me.”  Her brow furrows.  Dr. Ziegler turns off her tablet and looks at him.  “I want to help.”

There is a quiet emphasis when she says _I_.  She doesn’t not mention Overwatch, always so careful with her words when Genji thinks she has half a mind to say something else.  For all her brilliance and ambition, Dr. Ziegler is not in a position to _help_ —whatever _that_ would entail.  Overwatch has gotten them leashed in different ways, and Genji would rather not give himself false hope.   _Wanting_ to help is only a sentiment, and they both know it.

“You are as ruthless as you are kind,” he says instead, reaching for his faceplate.

“Which would you prefer?” Dr. Ziegler holds it out for him, gray metal shining cold in her hand.

Her expression is troubled.  It only occurs to Genji that she is perhaps not so disappointed with him as much as she is with herself.  A vicious thought crawls through his mind, black and repulsive. He is glad that she hurts.

Genji takes back the faceplate. He snaps it back on and breathes.

“I prefer to want nothing at all,” he says, standing.

Dr. Ziegler rechecks his vitals one last time, mouth drawn into a thoughtful frown.  The screens around them light up green.

“You demand impossible things of yourself,” Dr. Ziegler says, quiet as he passes her.

There is no answering for it.  It is a hopeless symptom to cure.  Genji closes the door behind him.

 

* * *

 

Punishment comes in the form of a metaphorical slap on the wrist and a stern lecture from the Strike-Commander.  As far as Genji can tell, Agent McCree does not exist, much like how Blackwatch isn’t all quite real either.  There’s no apologizing to a dead man, though Genji wonders what Overwatch considers _him_ to be—certainly not Shimada Genji.  Shimada Genji is dead, and has been dead long enough that the world has already forgotten about him.

Overwatch, however, seems to exist within it’s own tiny self-contained realm.  Instigating a fight with Blackwatch’s best agent in broad daylight doesn’t go unnoticed after all.  There had been surveillance cameras and people watching.  Genji hasn’t heard the rumors exactly, but it doesn’t escape him how both Lena and Winston have less and less to way to him nowadays. He thinks he should be used to this—he has always been in the center of things, utterly miserable through it all, but at least it had been of his own devising.  

His hands twitch, joints clicking in their mechanical way.  This feels beyond his control.

 

* * *

 

Agent McCree, when he shows up, becomes an unhealthy point of fixation.  They have not spoken since Genji had thrown his fist into McCree’s face, but he feels as if he catches McCree in the strangest moments—always under gunfire or surrounded by bodies, calm and deadly in a whirling storm.  Yet for all of Genji’s dactylic thoughts of being unruffled and steadfast, Agent McCree doesn’t seem to have a moment to himself.  He doesn’t know McCree outside of battle, and he can’t think of how McCree might be when he’s left to himself with no target to direct his gun.

Genji drives his sword through the training bot, electricity crackling.  The bot breaks, and it’s the sixth one in under five seconds.  He crushes the metal beneath his boot.  At his request, Dr. Ziegler has lowered the threshold of his pain receptors.  Everything is nearly numb in him, though if doesn’t feel as effective as he thought it would be.

“This will sound ridiculously insipid and uninspired, but the pain serves as a reminder,” Dr. Ziegler had told him.  Her hand rests over the back of his neck, clinical and gloved.  She applies pressure, and Genji leans forward, head bent low.  His spine clicks and locks into place.  The monitors flash green again.  “Do be careful with how much you can take.”

Genji yanks his sword out from the training bot.  The lack of pain will not make him any faster or hit any harder.  For a moment, his mind blanks on what else to do.  His breathing begins to go shallow, his heart races.  

The broken training bots shudder back to life, their pieces drawing together to make them whole again.  Genji raises his sword.

“Again,” he says, and his voice sounds so far away.

 

* * *

 

Six dead on the ground, and Genji feels like there’s fire burning through his veins and down into his lungs.  His air vents release hot steam, scalding even through his armor.  He flicks his sword, drawing splattered patterns on the ground.  Enemies tend to hesitate at the sight of it, so Genji stops using electricity to cauterize his cuts and lets the blood run red and brilliant over the blade.  

He eases down on his feet, breathing hard.  This is progress.

A pair of boots interrupts his thoughts, blocking his line of vision.  Genji glances up, though he already knows who it is.  

Agent McCree looks down at him, a little worn from battle, but his specialty lies in being hidden and obscured.  His bruises from their fight have healed long ago, and more than once he has already brazenly tipped his hat towards Genji from across the field, making it clear he isn’t the type to be cowed or shy away.  

“Nice swordwork,” he says, watching as Genji climbs to his feet.

The last time a compliment was said between them, Genji had launched himself into a fight.  Genji shrugs, wary, but McCree only crosses his arms, eyes narrowing.

“Does it always glow green like that?” he asks.

Genji turns his wrist, blade shining dark in the light.  Blood covers most of the green patterning, but there is no hum of electricity, and his sword is more prone to sparking, not glowing.

“It’s off,” Genji says. He doesn’t know how to feel about Agent McCree’s eyes following the motion.  Threatened, maybe.

“Your eyes too,” Agent McCree continues, jarring Genji, words and thoughts lining up too close to each other.  “They glow green sometimes.  I’ve noticed.  There’s _something_ …”  He trails off, frowning, as if he doesn’t want to say it himself.

Genji tilts his head, intrigued.  “You can’t see my eyes.”

“Visor, then,” McCree says, impatient.  He leans forward, much in the same way Genji had inspected him the first time.  His ordinary brown eyes flit from Genji’s face to his sword.  “They were green and smoky-like too, when you up and decked me before. Which, by the way, I’m still waiting on you to apologize for.”

Genji scoffs.  So Agent McCree has been watching him as closely as he had been watching McCree.  He smiles, thrilled by the idea.  

“Shall I show you again?” he asks.

But just like that, Agent McCree eases back.  “God, no.  Spooked me the fuck out, whatever thing’s crawling in you.”

Genji opens his mouth, but McCree had already turned around, leaving his mark to bruise.  Twelve even dead between them, and Genji still feels like he has lost.  

He slams his sword back into its sheath.    


* * *

 

Agent McCree’s left arm glints as he hauls Genji by the collar, metal fingers digging under the armor.  The alloy of his hand creaks, no match against Genji’s chest plate, but Genji knows it will take months for McCree to adjust to the strength of his new arm.

Genji tells him this much, and it should have been friendly advice, from one cyborg to another, but his tone had been smug, delighted when he sees the chance to spread his misery.

“One would think you should be better than before,” he says, sardonic.

When McCree speaks, his voice comes out furious and shaky.  The cold calmness he associates the him with disappears in a hazy mist of gray smoke, and now McCree is all spiking anger and nerves.  Much like Genji, he is a weapon with a broken part that will never be able to fix itself.

“Show me,” McCree says, good hand flying to his gun.  And he doesn’t mean whatever thing is crawling inside Genji.

With a laugh, Genji draws out his sword as McCree takes aim, green electricity snaking around the blade.  Even now, McCree refuses to use his prosthetic arm, and Genji thinks of how nice it must be, to have a choice to reject it.  

McCree snarls, unknowing, and Genji cannot wait to take him down with him.  



End file.
